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- Gonda, Noemi, et al.
(author)
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Critical Reflexivity in Political Ecology Research: How can the Covid-19 Pandemic Transform us Into Better Researchers?
- 2021
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In: Frontiers in Human Dynamics. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 2673-2726. ; 3
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- It is not just the world but our ways of producing knowledge that are in crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed our interconnected vulnerabilities in ways never seen before while underscoring the need for emancipation in particular from the hegemonic knowledge politics that underpin “business-as-usual” academic research that have both contributed to and failed to address the systemic challenges laid bare by the pandemic. Political ecologists tasked with knowledge generation on vulnerabilities and their underlying power processes are particularly well placed to envision such emancipatory processes. While pausing physically due to travel restrictions, as researchers in political ecology and rural development at the same university department, we want to make a stop to radically rethink our intellectual engagements. In this article, we aim to uncover “sanitized” aspects of research encounters, and theorize on the basis of anecdotes, feelings and informal discussions—“data” that is often left behind in fieldwork notes and personal diaries of researchers—, the ways in which our own research practices hamper or can be conducive to emancipation in times of multiple interconnected health, political, social, and environmental crises. We do so through affective autoethnography and resonances on our research encounters during the pandemic: with people living in Swedish Sapmi, with African students in our own “Global North” university department and with research partners in Nepal. We use a threefold focus on interconnectedness, uncertainty and challenging hegemonic knowledge politics as our analytical framework. We argue that acknowledging the roles of emotions and affect can 1) help embrace interconnectedness in research encounters; 2) enable us to work with uncertainty rather than “hard facts” in knowledge production processes; and 3) contribute to challenging hegemonic knowledge production. Opening up for emotions in research helps us to embrace the relational character of vulnerability as a pathway to democratizing power relations and to move away from its oppressive and colonial modes still present in universities and research centers. Our aim is to contribute to envisioning post-Covid-19 political ecology and rural development research that is critically reflexive and that contributes to the emergence of a new ethics of producing knowledge.Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it. (Roy, 2020)
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- Leder, Stephanie
(author)
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Ambivalences of collective farming: feminist political ecologies from Eastern India and Nepal
- 2019
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In: International Journal of the Commons. - : Ubiquity Press, Ltd.. - 1875-0281. ; 13, s. 105-129
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Collective farming has been suggested as a potentially useful approach for reducing inequality and transforming peasant agriculture. In collectives, farmers pool land, labor, irrigation infrastructure, agricultural inputs and harvest to overcome resource constraints and to increase their bargaining power. Employing a feminist political ecology lens, we reflect on the extent to which collective farming enables marginalized groups to engage in smallholder agriculture. We examine the establishment of 18 farmer collectives by an action research project in the Eastern Gangetic Plains, a region characterised by fragmented and small land-holdings and a high rate of marginalised and landless farmers. We analyze ambivalances of collective farming practices with regard to (1) social relations across scales, (2) intersectionality and (3) emotional attachment. Our results in Saptari/Eastern Terai in Nepal, Madhubani/Bihar, and Cooch Behar/West Bengal in India demonstrate how intra-household, group and community relations and emotional attachments to the family and neighbors mediate the redistribution of labor, land, produce and capital. We find that unequal gender relations, intersected by class, age, ethnicity and caste, are reproduced in collective action, land tenure and water management, and argue that a critical feminist perspective can support a more reflective and relational understanding of collective farming processes. Our analysis demonstrates that feminist political ecology can complement commons studies by providing meaningful insights on ambivalences around approaches such as collective farming.
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- Leder, Stephanie
(author)
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Beyond the 'Feminization of Agriculture': Rural out-migration, shifting gender relations and emerging spaces in natural resource management
- 2022
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In: Journal of Rural Studies. - : Elsevier BV. - 0743-0167 .- 1873-1392. ; 91, s. 157-169
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In international research and development discourses, the 'Feminization of Agriculture' is often used as a vague umbrella term referring to an increase in women's labor burden and responsibilities in agriculture as a result of male out-migration. However, the term is under-conceptualized, and fails to reflect changing gender relations in agriculture and natural resource management, with the potential consequence of ill-defined agriculture and gender research programs. This paper challenges narratives of the 'Feminization of Agriculture'. Drawing from feminist political ecology, this paper conceptualizes gender relations more broadly by highlighting gendered subjectivities and power relations in agriculture in contexts of male out-migration. I propose a conceptual framework to explore shifts in (1) socio-spatial struggles over resources, (2) influence within agrarian households and communal spaces, (3) aspirations, feelings of insecurity and self-determination. I build on extensive participatory fieldwork conducted in three countries, Nepal, India and Bangladesh. The conceptual framework helps analyze how some gender norms and relations are renegotiated in contexts of male out-migration. While unequal power relations shape everyday struggles in agriculture and natural resource management, for some women, increased mobility, social engagement and handling cash create new spaces to influence, move, and communicate. Importantly, everyday struggles over agricultural, water and land resources remain shaped by gender, age, caste, land ownership, remittances and household position, particularly those living with the family in-laws. Research and development programs need to take intersectionality into account and explore emerging spaces for influence, but also be aware of persistent gender norms and power relations which shape agricultural practices, aspirations and self-determination. I conclude by arguing for the need to expand the 'Feminization of Agriculture' debate towards a broader understanding of socio-spatial change and gendered subjectivities within agriculture.
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- Leder, Stephanie
(author)
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COVID-19, gender, and small-scale farming in Nepal
- 2022
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In: Gender, Food and COVID-19 : Global Stories of Harm and Hope. - London : Routledge. - 9781032055985 ; , s. 3-12
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Book chapter (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This chapter explores the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on women farmers, with a particular focus on the Far-Western region of Nepal.
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- Leder, Stephanie
(author)
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Does women’s empowerment lead to enhanced food security? Revisiting dominant food and water security discourses
- 2019
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In: Global Food Security. - : Elsevier BV. - 2211-9124. ; 23, s. 160-172
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Global discourses have advocated women's empowerment as a means to enhance food security. Our objective was to critically review the causal linkages between women's empowerment and food availability and access. We relied on mixed methods and a cross-country analysis, using household survey data from Bangladesh, Nepal and Tajikistan and qualitative data from Nepal. The quantitative analysis highlights the diversity of patterns linking empowerment and food security indicators and the roles socio-economic determinants play in shaping these patterns across countries. The qualitative analysis further stresses the need for a truly intersectional approach in food security programmes that supports challenging the structural barriers that keep marginalised men and women food insecure. Lastly, our findings call for informing standardised measures of empowerment with an assessment of local meanings and values.
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- Leder, Stephanie
(author)
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Experiments in farmers' collectives in Eastern India and Nepal: Process, benefits, and challenges
- 2021
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In: Journal of Agrarian Change. - : Wiley. - 1471-0358 .- 1471-0366. ; 21, s. 90-121
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Do farmers' collectives, which pool land, labour, capital, and skills to create medium-sized production units, offer a more viable model of farming for resource-constrained smallholders than individual family farms? A participatory action research project in Eastern India and Nepal provides notable answers. Groups of marginal and tenant farmers, catalysed by the project, evolved into four different collective models with varying levels of cooperation, gender composition, and land ownership/tenancy status. Based on 3 years of action research, this paper examines how the models evolved and their differential outcomes. All groups have gained from cultivating contiguous plots in their efficiency of labour and machine use for land preparation and irrigation, and from economies in input purchase. Several collectives of tenant farmers have also enhanced their bargaining power vis-a-vis an entrenched landlord class and thus been able to negotiate lower rents and refuse long-standing feudal obligations. However, the models differ in their extent of economic gain and their ability to handle gender inequalities and conflicts over labour sharing. The paper explores the historical, regional, and cultural factors that could explain such differences across the models. It thus offers unique insights into the processes, benefits, and challenges of farmers' collectives and provides pointers for replication and further research.
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| 10. |
- Leder, Stephanie
(author)
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From women's empowerment to food security: Revisiting global discourses through a cross-country analysis
- 2019
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In: Global Food Security. - : Elsevier BV. - 2211-9124. ; 23, s. 160-172
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Global discourses have advocated women's empowerment as a means to enhance food security. Our objective was to critically review the causal linkages between women's empowerment and food availability and access. We relied on mixed methods and a cross-country analysis, using household survey data from Bangladesh, Nepal and Tajikistan and qualitative data from Nepal. The quantitative analysis highlights the diversity of patterns linking empowerment and food security indicators and the roles socio-economic determinants play in shaping these patterns across countries. The qualitative analysis further stresses the need for a truly intersectional approach in food security programmes that supports challenging the structural barriers that keep marginalised men and women food insecure. Lastly, our findings call for informing standardised measures of empowerment with an assessment of local meanings and values.
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